I'll likely never be in the market to buy one of these, either. But if finalizing its design / getting it released is standing in the way of Canon releasing a 100-400 II (with twist zoom, please) or 400 f/5.6 (with IS, please), then I wish they'd hurry up and get it out, already.

Cant help but agree, sort of an anticlimax of sorts, nothing more to bitch about....No, something will come up.

Reminds me of that Movie "The Never Ending Story", Hope it's better though than the Movie, If we ever see it.

I'm one of the "Buyers" for this lens, now I'm starting to think that with the whole Nonsense of almost 3 years since Canon first indicated it would be released "Late 2011", I'll get it, set it up, flip the switch for the 1.4x converter, and it'll explode.

Logged

The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing

May be a non launch May never come out. Canon could cancel the lens at a time before it is introduced

I doubt that for two reasons.

First, the lens was already used by photographers in the Olympic games. That means most of the investment in the lens was already done, and Canon has an interest to manufacture the lens and cover the expenses.

If the lens turns into vaporware, that would be bad PR for Canon. Yes, this lens had a small target audience to begin with, and most photographers (including me) haven't considered buying one to begin with, but it would make customers suspect every announcement and delay.

Please, please Canon release this lens asap, I've really been waiting for this! Not because I'd actually buy it, but then you can get on releasing or updating sub-$10k lenses that for the rest of us like an updated 35mm & 50mm prime, maybe a 200mm f2.8 IS macro, ... ?

I got to play with this lens today at photofest Ireland and the Canon guys seemed truly clueless about anything to do with the production/cost of the lens, they could answer very few of my questions, even ones about the build/design of the lens. But it's a beautiful lens, lighter and smaller than I expected, the shots from it look epic. They were doing A3 prints of SOOC shots from a 1DX with the 200-400 on one of their printers and they looked terrific.